Case Studies

Case Studies

Global Maintenance Excellence Leader

1. 1.The Challenge

Our Client, a market leading company in the Food industry engaged Ripe4 on a challenging search for a Global Master PM (Preventative Maintenance) Pillar Leader for their Head Office in Switzerland. The nature of the role involved designing and implementing the strategy of the PM Pillar across 500+ sites that the company has globally.

This role focused on a very niche element of TPM and was further complicated by the fact that the person had to be multi-lingual, and ready for extensive global travel.

2. Our Approach

The Operational Excellence program of our client was 10 years old, and we have supported them on building it from inception. This gave us to a deep understanding of their requirements and the level of maturity of their OPEX Program.

The Client had asked us to identify companies with a strong and established Maintenance Excellence and Reliability program. Applying our vast knowledge of TPM and OPEX we began building our longlist of companies and target candidates.

The focus of the search had been weighted towards soft skill appraisal since we were scoping out candidates with strong leadership and influencing skills due to the size and the scale of the role coupled combined with the pre-requisite technical background. Face to face screening and SKYPE calls honed in on leadership skills and management style were tested by asking tailored questions to this effect and we quickly gained an insight into which candidate most impressed.

Our shortlisted candidates were then tested around their technical abilities where we asked candidates to highlight results and achievements related to Maintenance – it was important to understand not just what they achieved but also how they went about achieving their results and outcomes! Personality tests combined with online technical tests and 360 degree referencing gave us a 3 dimensional picture and allowed us to drill down a list of 3 possible contenders for this prestigious role.

The challenge in this instance has been to sell to the candidates a role for a company, although very well known, with a less established Operational Excellence program. Our consultants explained to the candidates that this would have allowed them to use the knowledge and skills acquired in a company with a more established TPM program and design and develop nearly from scratch the strategy of our client – essentially an opportunity to leave a legacy as opposed to carrying on the good work of others.

2.3.The Outcome

In less than 10 days we highlighted a shortlist of candidates that was presented to the client with our notes and recommendations The candidates included a wide variety of talent from an array of different companies, genders and locations all with the key attributes outlined. Also amongst the shortlist were a number of curveballs that had demonstrated excellence in their soft skill appraisal and were showing very promising signs of been able to deliver under pressure and across multiple pillars having been privy to some of the Worlds most advanced TPM initiatives. At the end it was one of these curveballs a lady of some stature in the TPM world who proceed she was more than a match for the black and white match and she has since gone on to be promoted twice taking on responsibility for an additional TPM pillar – offering the client excellent value for money!

Ripe4 managed to satisfy this Global Company by providing them an Operational Excellence Expert that more than covered this Senior Level HQ role.

Are you looking to hire a TPM or Operational Expert, do you have challenges in your packaging division? If so please contact us now on +44 (0)203 758 9695